This invention has to do with tire change assist tools. More particularly the invention is concerned with a tire change assist tool which facilitates tire changing, obviating a number of tire change problems and which is particularly adapted to use by persons of normal or less than normal strength, especially women.
The need to change a tire is seldom anticipated and never welcome. Tire changing is a dirty and hazardous business, particularly when it has to be accomplished on the shoulder of a heavily traveled freeway or in the dark. Increasing numbers of women living and traveling alone has occasioned a greater incidence of women needing to change tires. While today's woman is perhaps willing and generally familiar with the procedure for changing a tire, the nature of the tire mounting and the sheer weight of the wheel and tire effectively precludes physical carrying out of a tire change operation despite the desire to do so.
Tire changing consists of a number of operations including initially the removal of the wheel cover from the wheel, loosening of the lug nuts, jacking the car to an elevated position sufficient to provide clearance for removal of the flattened tire and insertion of a replacement tire, removal of the lug nuts, removal of the wheel from the axle lugs, substituting the wheel from the trunk on the axle lugs, affixing the lug nuts, lowering the car from its jacked-up position, tightly securing the lug nuts, and replacing the wheel cover.
Two of the just mentioned operations are particularly critical for the person of modest strength. First of all the loosening of the lug nuts is a chore even for a person of substantial strength since these lug nuts are tightly applied in the first instance and typically are not removed for long periods of time. Automobile manufacturers generally provide, in combination with the jacking tool, a tire iron in one end of which a lug nut receiving socket is formed. The tire iron is so designed that substantial torque may theoretically be applied to a lug nut to assist in loosening the lug nut. In practice, however, tire irons have become elongated bars with sharpened ends opposite the lug nut receiving socket. The sharpened end is evidently intended to assist in removal of the wheel cover but in practice it shortens by a substantial amount the area of the tire iron which may be employed in applying torque to the lug nut. This is because the sharpened end cuts into the hand of the user if he grasps the tire iron at the farthest possible point from the socket end, thus to increase mechanical advantage. In practice, the hand must be moved inwardly a substantial distance on the tire iron in order to avoid being cut and resulting torque obtained is thereby diminished. In addition, the likelihood of skinned knuckles is very great in that the hand must closely brush the fender of the automobile which on most cars extends a substantial distance out beyond the tire. The proximity of the tire iron to the automobile fender effectively precludes the use of the foot to apply pressure to the tire iron and thereby torque to the lug nut either because there is no space for the reasonable purchase of a foot on the tire iron or because of the hazard of damaging the fender by scraping a foot therealong.
Moreover, the configuration of the typical tire iron i.e. an elongated rod with a bent socket head and a sharpened end opposite is not very convenient for removal of wheel covers either. It generally turns out that the arc through which a tire iron may move when its sharpened end is engaged under a wheel cover, is too short to effectively remove the wheel cover before the opposite or socket end of the tire iron hits the fender. To avoid this some persons twist the tire iron and thereby wedge the wheel cover from the wheel. Again, persons of modest strength are unable to resort to this expedient and a tire change may be frustrated at the very outset by the inability to remove the wheel cover.
Assuming that these just mentioned difficulties are overcome, the greatest difficulty still remains. Having wrestled the replacement tire from the trunk and dragged the flattened tire from the axle lugs, dropping it onto the ground, the problem remains of how to mount the replacement tire on the axle lugs. As any person who has ever changed a tire will attest this task of lifting and simultaneously registering five lug receiving holes in the wheel with the axle lugs is no simple matter. For a woman or other person of modest strength the difficulty of lifting the wheel and maintaining it in a controlled position while maneuvering it slightly left and right and slightly up and down to achieve registration with the lug nuts is simply beyond their physical capabilities. Because of the jacked-up position of the car, registration with the axle lugs is always seemingly tantalizing close but effective mounting eludes many persons because of the need to move the tire inward, upward and sideways in a varying mix of simultaneous and sequential movements to actually achieve the tire mounting. All this must be accomplished of course while the tire changer is kneeling in a most unusual position with typically the best lines in view blocked by the ever-present automobile fender.
It is accordingly an objective of the present invention to provide a tire change assist tool obviating the aforementioned difficulties. It is another objective of the invention to provide in a single tire change assist tool remedies for the mentioned difficulties including means for more expeditiously and effectively removing wheel covers, means for obtaining greater torque on lug nuts by using the weight of the person changing the tire rather than merely that person's strength, means assuring a better grip on lug nuts for more effective turning thereof when torque is applied, means for supporting the replacement tire in position for facile registration with lug nuts, all without substantial exertion by the tire changer. It is a further objection to provide a tire change assist tool having these features which is small, compact and stores flat, in approximately the same space now occupied by a conventional tire iron. It is a still further objective of the invention to provide these features in a tire iron of low cost, simple construction, and substantial durability.